


The Promotion of the Pawn

by RubraSaetaFictor



Series: The Morals of Chess [8]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Fluff, Future Fic, Gen, Parentlock, Post-Episode: s04e03 The Final Problem
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-31
Updated: 2016-12-31
Packaged: 2018-09-13 13:39:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,859
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9126043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RubraSaetaFictor/pseuds/RubraSaetaFictor
Summary: Promotion is a chess rule that a pawn that reaches its eighth rank is immediately changed into the player's choice of a queen, knight, rook, or bishop of the same colour. Since the queen is the most powerful piece, the vast majority of promotions are to a queen, but it is not required and it may be more advantageous strategically to promote the pawn to a rank other than the expected one.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maryagrawatson](https://archiveofourown.org/users/maryagrawatson/gifts).



> Promotion is a chess rule that a pawn that reaches its eighth rank is immediately changed into the player's choice of a queen, knight, rook, or bishop of the same colour. Since the queen is the most powerful piece, the vast majority of promotions are to a queen, but it is not required and it may be more advantageous strategically to promote the pawn to a rank other than the expected one.
> 
>  

 

John knocked twice on the door to the upstairs bedroom at 221B.

“Come in.”

John opened the door to see his daughter flopped down on her bed, doodling in a sketchbook.

“Just checking to see how the packing’s going, you’ve only got a week left.”

“Good. I’m almost done.” Rosie nodded to the suitcase and small stack of boxes on the floor of her bedroom.

“That’s it?”

“You’re the one who always told me to travel light, Dad. Besides the rooms in the student housing are tiny. Only the essentials.”

John peeked into the top of the nearest open box. “But you’re bringing these?”  He pulled out a tattered knot of bright red wool fabric and a raggedy stuffed dog out of the box. “You haven’t slept with them for years.”

Rosie sprung up from the bed and snatched the items from her father’s grasp. “Of course I’m bringing Blankie and Floppy Dog.” She took them and placed them gently back in the box, closing the cardboard flaps over them. “It wouldn’t feel like home without them.”

John sat on the bed. “It’s not going to feel like home without you here.”

Rosie turned and sat next to her father on the edge of the bed. Curling her left arm through his right and placing her head on his shoulder. “I’m going to miss you too, Dad.”

John rested his cheek against her hair. “When you were a tiny baby and your Pata first asked us to move in here, I thought that there was no possible way the three of us could fit. I’ll admit it’s been a bit crowded at times, but once you’re gone? We’ll be rattling around the place. Just two old bachelors with nothing to worry about anymore.”

“I’m sure Pata will give you plenty of things to worry about.”

John chuckled. “You’re probably right. Now you remember to focus on your studies. I don’t want to hear that you’re spending your time chasing criminals down the streets of Paris. Why I ever let your father take you out on a case, I’ll never know.”

“Because we’re Watsons, Daddy. And that’s what Watsons do.”

John lifted his head and cast a questioning glance at his daughter. “Rosie…”

“I promise I won’t look into anything more dangerous than a cheating scandal, really.” Rosie sat up and looked at her father. “Can I tell you a secret? You have to promise to not tell Pata.”

“You two have always been as thick as thieves. What would you possibly want to tell me and not him?”

“There are some things Pata just doesn’t understand.”

 John nodded. “I won’t breathe a word.”

“I don’t like the cases with bodies.”

 “You’ve been remarkably good at hiding your squeamishness.”

“It’s not that they make me squeamish, I wouldn’t have survived growing up in this family if I got sick over a cadaver or two. It’s just – they make me sad. I know I should be able to objective, focus on the facts, but --“

“No, Rosie, you shouldn’t be anything other than what you are.” John squeezed his daughter a bit tighter. “Just be safe, alright? And not just case-work. You’ll be on your own, there are parties, drinking...”

“Dad. I can take care of myself. You taught me that. Anyone tries to take advantage, I’ll just sprain their wrist, alright?”

“That’s my girl.” He squeezed her arm, thinking of how soon she wouldn’t be there to hug anymore.

“I can I ask one favour from you before I go?”

“Of course, anything.”

“Will you sit for me?”

“You want to paint me?”

“You’ve never let me do your portrait. Just this once, please. It’ll be good practice before I head off to university.”

“Yeah, okay.”

Rosie squeezed her father’s arm. “Thank you.”

John kissed her cheek. “I love you, Rosie.”

“I know, Daddy. I know.”

 

*****

 

Sherlock pushed past the door into Rosie’s room to find her seated at her laptop and held out a scrap of paper in her direction.

“Uncle Lestrade finally got me the names of some detectives at the _Police Nationale_ that he thinks will be open to working with a civilian.”

Rosie turned and reached for the paper. “Thanks, Pata.”

Sherlock pulled his hand back before Rosie could take it. “Don’t take advantage too often. First – you’re going to France to learn, not to be the world’s second consulting detective, though god knows the French need it, and two, if your Dad finds out, he’ll kill me.”

“I’ll be responsible, I promise.”

Sherlock placed the paper into his daughter’s open palm.  

“You don’t mind, do you?”

“That you’ll be doing some consulting? Of course not.”

“No, that I’m not studying science.”

“Why would I mind?”

“It’s just that you, and Dad, and Aunt Molly –“

“You’re not any of us, Rosie, and who would I be, of all people, to encourage you to take a conventional path?” He sat on the bed, opposite her desk chair. “I know I call it —“

“The Science of Deduction. I know.”

“Knowing the pieces is a science, but putting them together is an art.”

“But there’s a far cry between that and studying to be a painter.”

“I don’t know, art in the blood is liable to take the strangest forms. You know your great-grand uncle was a painter, so really, you’re just returning to its roots.”

“Not my blood though, Pata.” Rosie said, slightly embarrassed to remind him of that.

“Well, the key to both is observation, which you learned from me, and you’re very good at it. I just wish you didn’t have to leave the country to study it.”

“Paris has the best schools. Besides, _pourquoi m'as-tu enseigné le français, si ce n'est pour l'utiliser ?”_

_“De toute evidence, une erreur de jugement de ma part.”_

Rosie laughed, and grabbing her hairbrush off the corner of her desk, sat down on the floor, her back to her father.  She handed Sherlock the brush. “Take care of Dad while I’m gone, okay? He’s going to take this harder than you think.”

Sherlock ran the brush through her hair. It had been so blonde as little girl, but had long since darkened to brunette, deep enough that people had stopped asking if she was his, a development that had pleased him more than he would admit. “I’ll keep him busy, I always have.”

“Cases, Pata. Preferably ones where he gets to run or punch somebody, he likes those the best. Don’t try to make him go on dates with strangers. He hates it when you do that.”

He separated her long hair into three strands and paused. “But he always goes. He just went on two dates with your maths instructor, who was a reasonably intelligent and attractive person.”

“He goes because he thinks you want him to.”

Sherlock began to plait the strands together with practised ease. “He said that?”

“He doesn’t have to. I observed it.”

“And I didn’t?”

“There are some things you’ve never seen very well. I think Dad is very content with the way things are.”

Sherlock said nothing, but pulled an elastic off the handle of the brush and fastened it around Rosie’s hair.

Rosie smiled. “Pata, _puis-je te demander une faveur_?”

_“Bien sûr, ma fille.”_

“Let me paint you before I go. Dad already said yes.”

Sherlock raised an eyebrow. “You want to hang portraits of your parents in your room?”

“Perhaps not, but it’ll be a while before I see your faces again, and I want to capture every detail for my mind palace. Painting you is the best way for me to do that.”

“How can I say no to that?”

Rosie sat up on her knees and pressed a kiss to her father’s cheek. “Thank you, Pata. I won’t make you promise to sit still, you couldn’t do that even for me.”

Sherlock’s eyes narrowed, while his lips smiled, “ _Effrontée_!”

 

*****

 

“Are you sure we can’t take you to the station?” John asked, stepping onto the kerb. He pulled some bills from his pocket and placed them in her hand.  

“What’s the point? It’d just be saying goodbye on a crowded platform in ten minutes instead of here at home.”

Sherlock placed the last box into the boot of the cab and closed it, shoving his hands in his pockets. “I still don’t know why you aren’t taking a plane. It would get you there faster.”

“I’ll be there soon enough, besides I’ve always liked trains.” Rosie looked down at the last bag beside her feet and took a deep breath. “I guess this is it.”

“Send us a text when you get there. Let us know you’ve arrived all right.” John pulled his daughter in for a hug, holding her tight, until he released her to her other father.

“Pata?” Rosie asked, Sherlock still sulking on the kerb.

Sherlock stepped forward draped his arms around her and rested his forehead on the top of her head. Sherlock had never thought that he would be a father, never thought he _wanted_ to be one. He did not believe in fate or luck, but he thanked them both for bringing Rosie to him. “ _Tu vas me manquer terriblement._ ”

“I know, Pata. Me too.” Rosie stepped back. “But it’ll be Christmas before you know it and I’ll be home, and we’ll go to Oxford Street to see the lights and you’ll play The Nutcracker and we’ll eat Uncle Mycroft’s pudding and you’ll never even know I’ve been gone.”

“I very much doubt that.”

She smiled and reached down, unzipping her bag. She pulled out two wrapped oval packages and a single card and handed them to her fathers. “Wait until I go to open them, okay?”

Rosie zipped her bag and placed a kiss on each father’s cheek before ducking into the cab and closing the door behind her. “St. Pancras International, please.” She looked backward out the window and waved to her parents, their figures growing more distant with each passing moment.

When they could no longer see Rosie's cab among the traffic, John looked back at Sherlock. “She’s really gone isn’t she?”

“Off to university.”

“I guess it’s just you and me again.” He looked down at the card and package in his hands. “Shall we open these now?”

“We might as well.” Sherlock pulled the paper off his package and looked at the portrait in his hands.

She truly was an extraordinary talent, had captured every detail: the deep creases under his eyes, the depth and variety of shades of silver in his hair, the way his mouth turned up just slightly if he was thinking of something that amused him. But it was more than just a clinical rendering, it radiated warmth. It was a perfect portrait of John. Sherlock looked over and saw an equally skilled portrait of himself in John’s hands, and raised an eyebrow. “She gave us the wrong ones.”

“I don’t think she did. “ John smiled as handed Sherlock the card that had accompanied the gifts.

It read:

_To Dad and Pata._

_Make sure you put them side by side. They work best together._

_Love, Rosie._

**Author's Note:**

> This is for maryagrawatson who asked for an "Rosie (then named Alice) going to college" story way back when. It seemed like a proper way to bring some closure to this series before S4 began.
> 
> If the French is _terrible_ , that is entirely my fault and not a reflection of the linguistic skills of Sherlock or Rosie, since I have only rudimentary French skills + google translate on my side. If anyone wants to provide better translations, I'm happy to update them. 
> 
> A big thank you to everyone who followed along with the series. Your feedback encouraged me to build up a whole world around what was originally designed to be a one-off story and it's been brilliant fun.
> 
> For those who may be returning to this story post S4, I've updated the daughter's name to Rosie align with the show.


End file.
